Mary Celeste was seen behaving from shore erratically before crews arrived to discover all on board had vanished without a trace.

It’s a mystery still so intriguing more than 100 years later.

How did the crew of the ship Mary Celeste disappear without a trace? It was as though they had literally vanished into thin air, leaving only one clue.

Theories have ranged from pirates to sea monsters, to mutiny, killer waterspouts, natural disaster, alien abduction and alcohol explosion.

Looking at the facts, this is what we know today. When the Mary Celeste was found on December 4, 1872 she was seaworthy, her cargo was intact and there was enough food and supplies for six months on-board.

She was not leaking and there was no structural damage. The only clue was one missing lifeboat. But those on-board had disappeared, leaving all personal belongings and cargo behind, sending the Mary Celeste into history as one of the greatest maritime mysteries of all time.

An 1861 painting of the Mary Celeste whose crew mysteriously vanished in 1872. Public domainSource:News Corp Australia

THE FATEFUL VOYAGE

The 282-ton brigantine ship Mary Celeste left Staten Island, New York City on November 7, 1872, for Genoa, Italy, sailing with Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs, his wife, Sarah, and the couple’s two year old daughter.

The couple had decided to leave their seven year old son with relatives so he didn’t miss school. Also on-board were seven crew members and a cargo of around 1,700 barrels of crude alcohol.

The crew members were all highly-experienced seamen who had been “hand-picked” by Captain Briggs. They would never reach their final destination.

Writing to his mother before leaving New York, Briggs seemed positive about the journey: “We seem to have a very good mate and steward and I hope I shall have a pleasant voyage.”

According to the ship’s log, the Mary Celeste battled howling winds and rough seas for a fortnight before it reached the Azores, Portugal and this is where the ship log’s last entry was recorded at 5am on November 25. Nothing out of the ordinary was reported in this final entry.

A mapped of the Mary Celeste's route.Source:Supplied

THE GHOST SHIP

Ten days later, the crew of the Dei Gratia spotted a ship sailing erratically, drifting off the coast of Portugal. The Dei Gratia’s Captain Morehouse noticed something was wrong — that the ship seemed to be seaworthy, but it looked like nobody was commanding her. Using a spyglass, Captain Morehouse immediately recognised the ship as the Mary Celeste.

He knew Briggs was a highly experienced captain and, because the ship had set sail before the Dei Gratia, he should have reached Genoa by that time. Morehouse sent a boarding party to the Mary Celeste to investigate.

According to the New England Historical Society, when the men boarded the ship, they found an eerie sight; the Mary Celeste was in perfect working order, apart from only one pump being operational. All the cargo was intact, and sails set.

There was a metre of water in the bilge, described as “a thoroughly wet mess”- probably through hatches left open on deck. But there was no sign of human life, nor was there any sign of a struggle or any criminal activity.

Historian Sean Munger wrote: “The clues as to what had happened — what few existed — were strange and incomplete. The main cargo hatch was sealed, but a forward hatch had been left open. Water had accumulated in the hold and between decks though the ship was not sinking and the hull wasn’t breached. A rope was found trailing into the sea from the ship’s stern, tied very tightly. The other end of the rope was frayed. Navigational implements, including a sextant, were missing from the bridge.”

The ship’s papers were missing, apart from the all-important captain’s logbook. The crews’ personal belongings were still on-board, their clothing neatly folded and packed away. The strongest clue was centred on the one missing lifeboat.

With no visible signs of violence or theft, it looked like the ship had been abandoned in a great hurry; perhaps a moment of terror or sheer panic.

And so began one of the most enduring mysteries of the sea.

Members of the Dei Gratia crew sailed the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar, where a British vice admiralty court began a salvage hearing. This was to decide whether the Dei Gratia crewmen were entitled to payment from the insurers of the Mary Celeste as compensation for bringing the ship to safety.

But, due to the mysterious nature of the case, the Attorney-General suspected mischief and launched a three-month investigation. Eventually the crewmen received payment, but it was only one-sixth of the $46,000 for which the ship and its contents had been insured.

The ship was spotted off the coast of Portugal sailing erratically, apparently unmanned.Source:Supplied

THE INVESTIGATION

All kinds of theories were tested, but one theory that became the most popular was that the Mary Celeste was attacked by pirates who murdered the crew and threw the bodies overboard.

However, this story had several holes; firstly, piracy wasn’t common in the area at the time due to a strong British naval presence. Also, there were no signs of violence or any kind of a struggle.

The fact that the cargo and all personal belongings were untouched meant the pirate theory was not plausible. Nobody really believed pirates would go to the trouble of taking a boat and murdering the crew only to leave the ship with its entire cargo.

According to the New England Historical Society, the judge in the case, Frederick Solly Flood, suspected the Mary Celeste was abandoned due to criminal activity — but, along with everyone else that examined the case, he had no idea exactly what happened.

Meanwhile the ghost ship became an international media sensation.

There were scant clues left, but one lifeboat had been taken from the boat as well as navigational equipment.Source:News Limited

WILD THEORIES: ALIEN ABDUCTION

The alien theory was mostly to do with the fact that early newspaper reports claimed the Mary Celeste crew left the ship in an eerily immaculate condition, with food still laid out on the table, and the last log entry being written just before it was discovered. This ended up being untrue because the last log was written several days before discovery and there was no food on the table. The ship was slightly waterlogged, so it wasn’t exactly pristine. Also, with one missing lifeboat it’s easy to surmise that the ship was deliberately abandoned. But why?

Benjamin Briggs, captain of Mary Celeste.Source:Alamy

MUTINY

When the ship was first inspected, unusual markings were found inside the ship that some believed were caused by a weapon — possibly an axe. There were also strange markings that were thought to be blood stains. This led to theories that one of more of the crew got drunk and killed everybody on-board before taking the ship’s lifeboat and making their escape. It’s hard to believe anybody would take a tiny lifeboat and attempt to get to land unless it was a life or death situation. The “blood stains” on the ship were later found not to be blood at all and that the “axe markings” were just normal wear and tear of the ship.

Also, there wouldn’t really have been much alcohol for the crew members as the alcohol on-board was industrial-grade and undrinkable. It wasn’t the kind of alcohol that might incite a mutiny. The crew had all been hand-picked by Captain Briggs; sailors with impeccable records. Despite a search for the crew in ports around the world, not a single crew member from Mary Celeste was ever found.

Two-masted brig Mary Celeste in undated image, which was found near Azores off coast of Portugal in late 1872 with captain, his family & crew missing.Source:News Corp Australia

NATURAL DISASTER

Many theories centred on the idea that the ocean caused the disappearance. Perhaps the ship came across a tornado or a violent quake that caused superficial damage, leading the crew to think, mistakenly, they were about to sink. With that in mind, it’s no wonder they would have rushed to board the lifeboat.

ALCOHOL EXPLOSION

According to historian Sean Munger, the biggest clue to the mystery was discovered when the ship was unloaded upon reaching Gibraltar. Although all 1700 alcohol barrels were there, nine were empty.

“If they leaked into the hold during the voyage, fumes might have built up below decks. Something obviously happened to cause Captain Briggs to give the order to abandon ship. Whatever it was, it must have been shocking enough to spook a very experienced mariner into what might have been a rash reaction,” Munger wrote.

According to this theory, Briggs might have ordered everyone to abandon ship temporarily, with the idea to sail behind the Mary Celeste until the danger had passed. But perhaps the rope attaching the lifeboat to the ship came undone and the ten people on-board were left to the dreadful immensity of the ocean.

Mary Celeste eventually found a new owner and sailed for another 12 years until her captain deliberately ran her aground off Haiti; believed to be part of insurance fraud scheme.

According to the New England Historical Society in 1885 Boston businessman Wesley Gove had purchased the Mary Celeste though he was unable to make a success of her. So, he loaded her with junk (like barrels of water instead of alcohol) had her over-insured before deliberately wrecking her in Haiti. Insurance investigators weren’t fooled, and Gove missed out on getting his payout.

In 2006, researchers investigated the theory that Captain Briggs ordered the ship to be abandoned due to alcohol vapours suddenly igniting in the hold. According to historian Sean Munger, this theory was originally discounted because as there was no evidence of a fire and the crew from the Dei Gratia didn’t notice any alcohol fumes.

But University College of London researchers built a replica of the Mary Celeste‘s hold and set fire to built-up fumes from alcohol. The fire spread very rapidly and left no evidence of fire — not even any scorches, as well as burning the fumes in the air and leaving no smell of alcohol.

“While it’s premature to conclude, as the UCL web page does, that this definitively “solves” the mystery of the Mary Celeste, it certainly puts a very probable theory on the table,” wrote Munger.

As for the Mary Celeste, the ship many believed was cursed was finally destroyed and officially out of commission. The ship didn’t actually sink and nobody bothered to bring it back to harbour.

Over the years, the Mary Celeste was left to drift in the sea, exposed to extreme conditions before being swallowed up by the ocean, off Haiti — taking whatever secrets she still held to her watery grave.

Video can be accessed at source link below